The Royal Wedding: Why I’m Watching

Do I care about the royal wedding—or, for that matter, about the monarchy? Well, I am interested in British history, and there are a lot of kings and queens in that. I have a weakness for the Plantagenets, and also for narrative—there’s a lot of that, too. If I were the sort of amateur scholar who nurtured a crankish pet theory about Shakespeare—and I’m not, I promise—mine would have to do with hidden references in “Henry V” to the relationship between Catherine of Valois and Owen Tudor, whom she took up with after Henry’s death. (They’re everywhere.) Figuring out the family connections between the Kaiser, the Czar, and the King in the Edwardian era is restfully engaging, like a crossword puzzle. And I like reading about Britain between the wars, which has meant deciding, on balance, that I hate Wallis Simpson. And I like the current Queen well enough; I like that there are things she is supposed to do, in the course of parliamentary events, even if part of me always vaguely hopes that she’ll be pulled into a constitutional crisis.

I will say that I am not interested in the interior lives of the younger ones; I don’t find the wedding compelling as a “love story.” Gabrielle Giffords’s presence, at about the same time tomorrow, at her husband’s shuttle launch, is far more romantic. (I am a little intrigued by Chelsy Davy, less because of her entanglement with Prince Harry than her father’s with the Mugabe regime.) As for whether the royal family deserves to live on taxpayer money, that’s up to the British; I just hope, out of a sense of fairness, that they are getting their money’s worth, in terms of spectacle. Also: I do have a general feeling that a billion or two people watching something is, in itself, a good reason to watch it.

There are alibis I could cite, in terms of political news: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were supposedly snubbed (the Palace’s defense has something to do with the Most Noble Order of the Garter); the Syrian Ambassador was disinvited; but the North Korean Ambassador will be there. But those aren’t really excuses. Leo Carey’s reasons for not watching are better than mine for why I will.